Deposition technologies for coating and plating materials and developing engineered surfaces may include any of a variety of deposition technologies. These deposition technologies may include, for example, vacuum deposition, physical vapor deposition (“PVD”), chemical vapor deposition (“CVD”), sputtering, and ion plating.
Generally, all of these deposition technologies require a vacuum system with a platform for proper support and positioning of the substrate within a vacuum chamber to ensure that a desired plating is achieved. The platform may also be referred to as a table, turntable, base plate, and the like. The proper support, presentation, and positioning of the substrate on or by the platform during plating is critical to achieve a desired, repeatable, and successful plating. Often, the platform must provide rotational motion to the substrate during plating to achieve a more uniform or desired coating or plating.
Unfortunately, substrates come in all shapes and sizes and often, a platform that is used in a vacuum chamber to support or rotate a substrate during plating works well with one particular shape or type of substrate, but poorly for another. Further, many vacuum chambers only support one type of platform or table, and few, if any platforms contemplate substrates of significantly different shapes and sizes. This significantly limits the effective use of expensive deposition and plating systems, including expensive vacuum chambers and platforms.